Following the press screening of the worlds premiere of George Clooney's WW II art recovery thriller, "Monuments Men" the press center hotel Hyatt a few steps away was a madhouse of frustrated journalists trying to get a glimpse of the procedings at the head of the stairs outside of the already jam packed conference hall.  Clooney himself is always a magnetic drawing card here but this was in addition to the star director himself, many of his costars, namely Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Massive John Goodman, French star Jean Dujardin. Murray has been a notable. Presence here also starringand repping the festival opener "Grand Budapest Hotel.

Here some press conference shots hot from the TV screens in the Tesijiro VIP lounge.

Georgeous George in cool relaxed mode at center of press conference table ...

At his right hand, Bill Murray ...

The monuments of the title are monumental masterpieces of Euroean art that were stolen by the Nazis and might have been destroyed in case of Germany's defeat in the war on direct orders from Hitler. The pictures follows a band of art specialist recruited and pressed into service in the closing days of the war to try to find and retreive as many of these looted art works as possible as the Russians close in from the east. Clooney is an art historian, Lieutenant Frank Stokes, who leads this uusual special force on their desperate quest. The point made at several points in the film, is that destruction of the art heritage of a civilization is even worse than the mass killing of people because it wipes out the collective cultural memory. Said to be based on a true story this is another well intentioned star studded essay by Clooney on a little known WW II episode. Fast moving and interesting all the way with an unrecognizable Cate Blanchett in a cameleon role as Claire Simone, a French musem curator suspected of collaboration with the nazis. The press screening was interrupted for twenty minutes when somebody in the balcony fainted and had to be carted off to a hospital. It ended in dead silence instead of the usual hurrahs for the stars -- maybe because the subject matter is not exactly complimentary to Germans with long memories and lingering guilt feelings about the collective criminality of a still kicking earlier generation. in any case A savvy choice and an appropriate place, Berlin, for the worlds premiere of this entertaining picture.